BSD stand for Berkley Software Distribution, it is the most Unix like of all the *nix operating systems. It sticks to the roots of what Unix is and was. It utilizes probably the best package management systems, ports and pkg_add. Ports is a collection of source code that is compiled on your system, to compile a program from ports you find it on your harddrive and "make install clean", or if you dont want to compile just "pkg_add" and you get the binary installation. It has the most comprehensive instruction manual, every question that you could possibley ever have is answered. The "Freebsd Handbook" as it is known will take you from the first steps of installation to a complete operating system and beyond. It runs on a variety of processors and can be installed installed from a 300 meg iso, the core of the OS is installed the rest is compiled or get the 700 meg iso and install from binaries. Upgrading programs that are already installed is as simple as "portupgrade programname" if you installed from ports, or just pkg_delete and add again if you did a binary. A truly versatile operating system that is easy to use, reliable, and feature rich it will take you in and you will never go back to anything else.

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